Ignite Your Bones
by Aini NuFire
Summary: Post 12x23 Fix-It. SPOILERS


**A/N: For snovolovac, who, like us all, wanted a fix-it after that brutal finale. I do have to admit that I haven't watched it, only read the recaps and saw some gifs on tumblr (like of the wings, unfortunately). I don't think I'll watch until season 13 starts, so I can get right to Cas coming back, haha. But here's my contribution to tiding us over until then. ^_^**

 **And for another finale fix-it, check out LadyWallace's "Guns, Grace, and Rock Salt" Chapter 10.**

 **Disclaimer: Not mine. Thank you 29Pieces and LadyWallace (who actually watched the episode) for beta reading!**

* * *

"Ignite Your Bones"

Sam stares in growing horror at the fully grown young man huddled in the corner, gold eyes glowing in the dim lighting. It's not a baby—how could it not be a baby?

The grin on the nephilim's face fades, and with it some of that sinister quality. Now he looks confused. "Y-you're not him," he says in monotone, slowly, like he's not accustomed to using his voice. Which makes sense. These are probably his first words, yet he's able to form complete sentences despite being less than an hour old.

The boy uncurls from his position, lanky arms and legs extending like a spider's. "Who are you?" he asks, voice cords still stiff, but a tenor of mistrust leaks into his tone.

Sam tries to swallow past the hard lump threatening to cut off his airway. He can't deal with this right now, not with…

He clears his throat. "My name is Sam." He hesitates. "You're Jack, right?"

The nephilim slowly cranes his head toward the mural on the wall. Something in his alien expression shifts, softens. "Yes," he replies, as if he's only just realized it.

He turns back to Sam, roves what feels like a predatory gaze up and down the hunter, but after a moment it becomes more appraising, and then Jack looks down at himself. He straightens to fully upright, and walks over to the dresser to begin rummaging through its drawers. He pulls out an infant's onesie and evaluates it.

"This won't fit."

Sam blinks, still too stupefied to move.

"I need proper…clothes," Jack tells him.

"Um…" Sam casts about for something, but there isn't really anything. Cas and Kelly had been preparing for a _baby_ , after all. "Let…let me check another room," Sam manages to say, and cautiously backs out of the nursery.

He wants to get Dean, but also doesn't; Sam's not ready to go back outside and face…

He goes into the next bedroom and opens the closet. There are some old, musty clothes inside. They won't fit, but they're better than a buck naked nephilim running around. Sam grabs a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt, carries them back into the nursery and awkwardly hands them to Jack. He doesn't help the boy dress, just stands there and watches him struggle as he figures out how sleeves work.

Once Jack is clothed, he looks almost normal, his golden eyes dimmed to light brown. But there is still an alien mien in the way he holds himself. He lifts his piercing gaze to Sam's again. "Where is C-Castiel?" He struggles to enunciate the name, as though it's something else he's not entirely certain about.

Sam feels like throwing up. Cas took care of Kelly and her unborn child for weeks, and somehow this…boy, imprinted on Cas or something. But Cas isn't here. And he isn't…isn't coming back.

"He's…gone," Sam forces out, and the words feel like chewing on glass.

Jack's mouth turns down. "Gone where?" His speech patterns are smoothing out as he continues to acclimate.

Hot moisture burns at the corners of Sam's eyes, and he can't speak.

Jack narrows his gaze. "You know where he is? Take me to him," he commands.

Sam isn't sure he wants to, isn't sure they should disturb Dean's mourning, isn't sure he's ready to let this brand new and unpredictable being out that front door and into the world.

Yet at the same time, this being also has the power to rip through space and time. The rift may be sealed and Mom… Sam's chest constricts. But surely something as powerful as everyone feared would be able to do _something_ this close to home. Sam's been here enough times to recognize how desperate he is, but he knows, deep down, that there might be a chance…

He turns and leads Jack outside.

* * *

Dean can't feel his legs. He's been on his knees so long he's cut off circulation to them. But he also can't feel much of anything else. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows he should. Sam's inside the house with a potential nuke and Dean should go help him. But he can't bring himself to move. He'd just gotten Mom back and now she was gone again, for good. With Lucifer.

It's 2010 all over again. Cas, dead, by Lucifer's hand. Sam and Lucifer falling into the Pit. This time it's Mary who fell with Lucifer, through the dimensional rift that's now permanently sealed by Crowley's blood sacrifice. And Cas is…

 _Please_ , Dean prays brokenly. Chuck brought Cas back last time. He has to be out there, somewhere. _Please_.

The door to the house creaks open, but Dean doesn't look up, not until a pair of bare feet come to stand on the other side of Cas. And then Dean is raising a blank look at this random kid and where the hell did he come from?

The kid stares down at Cas, at the blackened wing prints scorched into the grass and dirt. "I don't understand," he says, and looks at Sam, standing behind them all. "I don't understand."

Sam clears his throat nervously. "He- Cas was fighting to protect you. He gave his life."

Sam's voice chokes, and Dean is filled with a thrill of unease and anger, because _this_ was what Cas died for? This mutant freak, who's clearly not an innocent baby to be raised and taught right from wrong. He's practically full-grown, and Dean marks Kelly's absence and thinks, why does this _thing_ get to live, and she and Cas don't? The two people who devoted _everything_ to keeping it safe.

Jack's brow furrows. "But…that wasn't supposed to happen."

 _You think?_ Dean wants to scream, but his vocal cords are as paralyzed as the rest of him.

The nephilim kneels down, and Dean wants to shove him away from Cas, but he still can't move, still can't feel his extremities. Sam watches tensely as Jack reaches a hand out to Cas's lax face. The boy doesn't touch, though, just hovers there. Dean knows there's no breath in Cas's body.

Jack's frown deepens, and he moves his hand down to Cas's chest and the stab wound. It didn't even bleed that much.

"I can't feel him," Jack says, perplexed, and he looks up at Sam again. "Where did he go?"

Sam's eyes are glistening. Where do angels go when they die? "I- I don't know," he says, and Dean can hear his voice breaking. His own heart is splintering just the same.

Jack looks contemplative. "I felt it, when my mother…died." He sounds like he's tasting the word. "I felt her soul ascend to Heaven. But…" His expression pinches. "Beings of Grace don't go there."

Dean looks down at Cas. No, no they don't. Angels…wink out like stars. Which isn't fair. Cas deserves more than that. He deserves more than _this_.

Dean finally feels tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, and he tips his head back to swallow them down. He can't do this. Why does the world keep taking so much from them? When will it all just _stop_?

Jack studies Cas some more, eyes the soot in the grass, splayed in bands of mangled feathers. Without a word, his hand starts to glow with a golden hue. Dean's breath catches in his throat.

A tiny spark ignites in the darkness, then another, like silver embers cast into the wind from an unseen fire. More follow, glittering shards of azure dust. They flicker into existence out of thin air, scattered all around and above at first, but slowly they gather, converging over Jack's radiated palm. The combinatory glow of gold and sapphire light Cas's waxen face with a splash of auroras.

Dean stares, mesmerized, as stardust accumulates into a ribbon of gossamer grace. He can't look away, can't spare the briefest second to glance up at Jack and wonder whether this nephilim is good at heart like Cas believed or has something darker lurking underneath the surface. At the moment, Dean can't bring himself to care either way.

The grace pools over the stab wound and starts to seep in. Cas's chest glows from within, light traveling up his sternum, neck, face, and under his closed eyelids. The air to Dean's left displaces with a small whoof, and he's startled enough to break his transfixed gaze and look over. Black ink shimmers over the ground like silk for a brief moment before vanishing. The scorch marks are gone.

Cas's back arches off the ground as he suddenly sucks in a sharp gasp, eyes flying wide with a flare of blue orbs before they return to normal, and then he's blinking furiously, dazedly.

Jack cocks his head as though curious, but Dean doesn't allow the boy to take this moment from them. Dean grabs fistfuls of Cas's coat and hauls him upright, straight into his arms, and crushes the breathing, very much alive angel to his chest.

"Cas," he chokes.

Cas's chest judders against his, sucking in oxygen. He's practically limp otherwise, but Dean feels shaky fingers clutch weakly at his back, and Dean tightens his hold, heedless of constricting Cas's already strained airway. He's back. The son-of-a-bitch came back.

"Don't you _ever_ do that again," Dean breathes into the angel's ear, because how many times is he going to have to watch Cas die or come close to it? It doesn't matter if Cas always comes back; Dean never wants to go through this again.

He meets Jack's gaze over Cas's shoulder, and isn't sure how to thank him. Isn't sure the kid would even understand what it means.

Sam rushes around Dean and drops down behind Cas, where the wing prints are no longer burned into the grass. His hands run over Cas's back, jittery with frantic relief. They linger over the space between his shoulder blades where Lucifer would have thrust the angel blade in. The wound is gone; Dean can see there isn't even a hole in the trench coat.

Cas hiccoughs on another breath, and Dean finally pulls back to look him in the eye. He sways, and Sam plants his hands on both of Cas's shoulders to steady him, scooting right up against his back so he doesn't fall backward.

"Wh-what happened?" Cas asks, voice low and nearly raspy.

"You _died_ , you bastard," Dean growls.

Cas blinks again, then slowly drops his chin and raises a shaking hand to his chest, as though he remembers that split last second of being stabbed. He lifts his gaze again, bewildered, and finally shifts it to Jack, who's still there, rocked back on his haunches and watching them like a curious bird. Cas's eyes widen.

" _Jack_?"

For the first time since he came out of that house, the boy's mouth tugs upward. "Yes."

"I- I don't understand," Cas sputters.

"Welcome to the club," Dean replies under his breath.

"And Lucifer?"

Dean's throat tightens, and he exchanges a pained look with Sam. "Trapped in the other dimension." He hesitates. "With Mom."

Cas's expression morphs into horror, and Dean squeezes his forearm.

"We'll figure it out." He told Cas he has faith in the three of them, and he still does. Somehow, some way, they will fix this, too.

Unable to help himself, Dean abruptly pulls Cas in for another hug. He's real, he's solid—he's alive.

"I'm sorry," Cas whispers.

Dean just tightens his hold, tries to convey everything he means but can't put into words through that tactile connection. Because Mom is still gone and he still doesn't know what they're supposed to do with Jack. But as long as he's got Sam and Cas by his side, he can face it, whatever it is.


End file.
